Farm Girls

How are the chickens you ask?

Millie and Thelma celebrated 3-months of life on the 5th of this month. They're plump and juicy with only a few more months left of growing. Hopefully we'll get some egg laying action toward the end of winter 2011.

After a lil' Viking unlatches their coop in the morning, Mildred (a.k.a. Millie) will walk down the bridge to the feeder below while Thelma jumps out. They usually have a bit of breakfast under the coop, make plans for the day, clean their beaks on the cement and then head out into the wilds of the backyard.

For the most part, Maggie is fairly ambivalent about them. But, around 7:30 in the morning they'll start pecking on the slider, begging for treats and that's when Maggie typically jumps into action. I usually send the kids outside to scatter organic oats and flax seed, they usually let the girls peck some bites from their hands before throwing it onto the grass. Sometimes we feed them parsley, apricots, apple cores, corn on a cob, even bread. They love it all.

Maggie loves to help them, and they let her without giving up their own position in the pecking order. It seems Maggie's just another one of the hens to them.

And that's how they spend their day, picking at worms and bugs, sharing oatmeal with Maggie, chirping at each other and pecking at our windows. At dusk, they head back up the ramp to their coop on their own volition and snuggle up on their roost. By dark, Lars has the door latched and the girls tucked in.

It's a good life for my animals -- cowish doggies, sea monkeys, hens, Viking children and bearish husband.